The power of oops

The Buddha once said “There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.” I sort of fall into both elements of mistake-making; the not starting part but also the not going all the way. Unfinished projects fall away or get forgotten, while ideas might get listed but never see the light of day.

Mistakes mean you’re trying. By forging ahead, challenging yourself, you learn your limits but also how much you can accomplish if you try (and try again.

It’s okay to make mistakes Not only is it okay to make miscalculations and errors, Life demands that you do so from time to time if only to provide valuable lessons. Some of the most powerful lessons comes from mistakes.

This is not to say that facing the occasional snafu won’t cause you sorrow. Choose to move on. Don’t wallow and learn from the mistake to make better choices.

There’s a few things to remember about the fear of mistakes;

-Most times whatever you fear often doesn’t come into being. As the old Italian proverbs says, “Fear makes the wolf bigger”.

-Fear doesn’t go away. Fear is one of the many things that make us human, and therefore you can’t get rid of it, you can only work through it.

Some terrific mistakes:

-Ice cream cones

-Chocolate chip cookies

-Penicillin

-Post It Notes

-Popsicles

And how is this important to the world of writing? Many writers face the ‘inner editor’ that lurks over them pointing out mistakes in grammar, spelling, punctuations, or even creative elements to the manuscript.

When writing, shut up this inner editor by daring to make the mistakes you can fix later. In the meantime, the story unfolds and you reach the end. Only then, you rewrite and fix things to your liking.

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Try for the next week or so to just write, without concern to mistakes and see where it leads you.